CHAPTER IX. THE KING IN THE HUNTING LODGE
THE moment with its shock and tumult of feeling brings one judgment, later reflection another. Among the sins of Rupert of Hentzau I do not assign the first and greatest place to his killing of the king. It was, indeed, the act of a reckless man who stood at nothing and held nothing sacred; but when I consider Herbert’s story, and trace how the deed came to be done and the impulsion of circumstances that led to it, it seems to have been in some sort thrust upon him by the same perverse fate that dogged our steps. He had meant the king no harm—indeed it may be argued that, from whatever motive, he had sought to serve him—and save under the sudden stress of self-defense he had done him none. The king’s unlooked-for ignorance of his errand, Herbert’s honest hasty zeal, the temper of Boris the hound, had forced on him an act unmeditated and utterly against his interest. His whole guilt lay in preferring the king’s death to his own—a crime perhaps in most men, but hardly deserving a place in Rupert’s catalogue. All this I can admit now, but on that night, with the dead body lying there before us, with the story piteously told by Herbert’s faltering voice fresh in our ears, it was hard to allow any such extenuation. Our hearts cried out for vengeance, although we ourselves served the king no more. Nay, it may well be that we hoped to stifle some reproach of our own consciences by a louder clamor against another’s sin, or longed to offer some belated empty atonement to our dead master by executing swift justice on the man who had killed him. I cannot tell fully what the others felt, but in me at least the dominant impulse was to waste not a moment in proclaiming the crime and raising the whole country in pursuit of Rupert, so that every man in Ruritania should quit his work, his pleasure, or his bed, and make it his concern to take the Count of Hentzau, alive or dead. I remember that I walked over to where Sapt was sitting, and caught him by the arm, saying:
“We must raise the alarm. If you’ll go to Zenda, I’ll start for Strelsau.”
“The alarm?” said he, looking up at me and tugging his moustache.
“Yes: when the news is known, every man in the kingdom will be on the lookout for him, and he can’t escape.”
“So that he’d be taken?” asked the constable.
“Yes, to a certainty,” I cried, hot in excitement and emotion. Sapt glanced across at Mr. Rassendyll’s servant. James had, with my help, raised the king’s body on to the bed, and had aided the wounded forester to reach a couch. He stood now near the constable, in his usual unobtrusive readiness. He did not speak, but I saw a look of understanding in his eyes as he nodded his head to Colonel Sapt. They were well matched, that pair, hard to move, hard to shake, not to be turned from the purpose in their minds and the matter that lay to their hands.
“Yes, he’d probably be taken or killed,” said Sapt.
“Then let’s do it!” I cried.
“With the queen’s letter on him,” said Colonel Sapt.
I had forgotten.
“We have the box, he has the letter still,” said Sapt.
I could have laughed even at that moment. He had left the box (whether from haste or heedlessness or malice, we could not tell), but the letter was on him. Taken alive, he would use that powerful weapon to save his life or satisfy his anger; if it were found on his body, its evidence would speak loud and clear to all the world. Again he was protected by his crime: while he had the letter, he must be kept inviolate from all attack except at our own hands. We desired his death, but we must be his body-guard and die in his defense rather than let any other but ourselves come at him. No open means must be used, and no allies sought. All this rushed to my mind at Sapt’s words, and I saw what the constable and James had never forgotten. But what to do I could not see. For the King of Ruritania lay dead.
An hour or more had passed since our discovery, and it was now close on midnight. Had all gone well we ought by this time to have been far on our road back to the castle; by this time Rupert must be miles away from where he had killed the king; already Mr. Rassendyll would be seeking his enemy in Strelsau.
“But what are we to do about—about that, then?” I asked, pointing with my finger through the doorway towards the bed.
Sapt gave a last tug at his moustache, then crossed his hands on the hilt of the sword between his knees, and leant forward in his chair.
“Nothing, he said,” looking at my face. “Until we have the letter, nothing.”
“But it’s impossible!” I cried.
“Why, no, Fritz,” he answered thoughtfully. “It’s not possible yet; it may become so. But if we can catch Rupert in the next day, or even in the next two days, it’s not impossible. Only let me have the letter, and I’ll account for the concealment. What? Is the fact that crimes are known never concealed, for fear of putting the criminal on his guard?”
“You’ll be able to make a story, sir,” James put in, with a grave but reassuring air.
“Yes, James, I shall be able to make a story, or your master will make one for me. But, by God, story or no story, the letter mustn’t be found. Let them say we killed him ourselves if they like, but—”
I seized his hand and gripped it.
“You don’t doubt I’m with you?” I asked.
“Not for a moment, Fritz,” he answered.
“Then how can we do it?”
We drew nearer together; Sapt and I sat, while James leant over Sapt’s chair.
The oil in the lamp was almost exhausted, and the light burnt very dim. Now and again poor Herbert, for whom our skill could do nothing, gave a slight moan. I am ashamed to remember how little we thought of him, but great schemes make the actors in them careless of humanity; the life of a man goes for nothing against a point in the game. Except for his groans—and they grew fainter and less frequent—our voices alone broke the silence of the little lodge.
“The queen must know,” said Sapt. “Let her stay at Zenda and give out that the king is at the lodge for a day or two longer. Then you, Fritz—for you must ride to the castle at once—and Bernenstein must get to Strelsau as quick as you can, and find Rudolf Rassendyll. You three ought to be able to track young Rupert down and get the letter from him. If he’s not in the city, you must catch Rischenheim, and force him to say where he is; we know Rischenheim can be persuaded. If Rupert’s there, I need give no advice either to you or to Rudolf.”
“And you?”
“James and I stay here. If any one comes whom we can keep out, the king is ill. If rumors get about, and great folk come, why, they must enter.”
“But the body?”
“This morning, when you’re gone, we shall make a temporary grave. I dare say two,” and he jerked his thumb towards poor Herbert.
“Or even,” he added, with his grim smile, “three—for our friend Boris, too, must be out of sight.”
“You’ll bury the king?”
“Not so deep but that we can take him out again, poor fellow. Well, Fritz, have you a better plan?”
I had no plan, and I was not in love with Sapt’s plan. Yet it offered us four and twenty hours. For that time, at least, it seemed as if the secret could be kept. Beyond that we could hardly hope for success; after that we must produce the king; dead or alive, the king must be seen. Yet it might be that before the respite ran out Rupert would be ours. In fine, what else could be chosen? For now a greater peril threatened than that against which we had at the first sought to guard. Then the worst we feared was that the letter should come to the king’s hands. That could never be. But it would be a worse thing if it were found on Rupert, and all the kingdom, nay, all Europe, know that it was written in the hand of her who was now, in her own right, Queen of Ruritania. To save her from that, no chance was too desperate, no scheme too perilous; yes, if, as Sapt said, we ourselves were held to answer for the king’s death, still we must go on. I, through whose negligence the whole train of disaster had been laid, was the last man to hesitate. In all honesty, I held my life due and forfeit, should it be demanded of me—my life and, before the world, my honor.
So the plan was made. A grave was to be dug ready for the king; if need arose, his body should be laid in it, and the place chosen was under the floor of the wine-cellar. When death came to poor Herbert, he could lie in the yard behind the house; for Boris they meditated a resting-place under the tree where our horses were tethered. There was nothing to keep me, and I rose; but as I rose, I heard the forester’s voice call plaintively for me. The unlucky fellow knew me well, and now cried to me to sit by him. I think Sapt wanted me to leave him, but I could not refuse his last request, even though it consumed some precious minutes. He was very near his end, and, sitting by him, I did my best to soothe his passing. His fortitude was good to see, and I believe that we all at last found new courage for our enterprise from seeing how this humble man met death. At least even the constable ceased to show impatience, and let me stay till I could close the sufferer’s eyes.
But thus time went, and it was nearly five in the morning before I bade them farewell and mounted my horse. They took theirs and led them away to the stables behind the lodge; I waved my hand and galloped off on my return to the castle. Day was dawning, and the air was fresh and pure. The new light brought new hope; fears seemed to vanish before it; my nerves were strung to effort and to confidence. My horse moved freely under me and carried me easily along the grassy avenues. It was hard then to be utterly despondent, hard to doubt skill of brain, strength of hand, or fortune’s favor.
The castle came in sight, and I hailed it with a glad cry that echoed among the trees. But a moment later I gave an exclamation of surprise, and raised myself a little from the saddle while I gazed earnestly at the summit of the keep. The flag staff was naked; the royal standard that had flapped in the wind last night was gone. But by immemorial custom the flag flew on the keep when the king or the queen was at the castle. It would fly for Rudolf V. no more; but why did it not proclaim and honor the presence of Queen Flavia? I sat down in my saddle and spurred my horse to the top of his speed. We had been buffeted by fate sorely, but now I feared yet another blow.
In a quarter of an hour more I was at the door. A servant ran out, and I dismounted leisurely and easily. Pulling off my gloves, I dusted my boots with them, turned to the stableman and bade him look to the horse, and then said to the footman:
“As soon as the queen is dressed, find out if she can see me. I have a message from his Majesty.”
The fellow looked a little puzzled, but at this moment Hermann, the king’s major-domo, came to the door.
“Isn’t the constable with you, my lord?” he asked.
“No, the constable remains at the lodge with the king,” said I carelessly, though I was very far from careless. “I have a message for her Majesty, Hermann. Find out from some of the women when she will receive me.”
“The queen’s not here,” said he. “Indeed we’ve had a lively time, my lord. At five o’clock she came out, ready dressed, from her room, sent for Lieutenant von Bernenstein, and announced that she was about to set out from the castle. As you know, the mail train passes here at six.” Hermann took out his watch. “Yes, the queen must just have left the station.”
“Where for?” I asked, with a shrug for the woman’s whim.
“Why, for Strelsau. She gave no reasons for going, and took with her only one lady, Lieutenant von Bernenstein being in attendance. It was a bustle, if you like, with everybody to be roused and got out of bed, and a carriage to be made ready, and messages to go to the station, and—”
“She gave no reasons?”
“None, my lord. She left with me a letter to the constable, which she ordered me to give to his own hands as soon as he arrived at the castle. She said it contained a message of importance, which the constable was to convey to the king, and that it must be intrusted to nobody except Colonel Sapt himself. I wonder, my lord, that you didn’t notice that the flag was hauled down.”
“Tut, man, I wasn’t staring at the keep. Give me the letter.” For I saw that the clue to this fresh puzzle must lie under the cover of Sapt’s letter. That letter I must myself carry to Sapt, and without loss of time.
“Give you the letter, my lord? But, pardon me, you’re not the constable.” He laughed a little.
“Why, no,” said I, mustering a smile. “It’s true that I’m not the constable, but I’m going to the constable. I had the king’s orders to rejoin him as soon as I had seen the queen, and since her Majesty isn’t here, I shall return to the lodge directly a fresh horse can be saddled for me. And the constable’s at the lodge. Come, the letter!”
“I can’t give it you, my lord. Her Majesty’s orders were positive.”
“Nonsense! If she had known I should come and not the constable, she would have told me to carry it to him.”
“I don’t know about that, my lord: her orders were plain, and she doesn’t like being disobeyed.”
The stableman had led the horse away, the footman had disappeared, Hermann and I were alone. “Give me the letter,” I said; and I know that my self-control failed, and eagerness was plain in my voice. Plain it was, and Hermann took alarm. He started back, clapping his hand to the breast of his laced coat. The gesture betrayed where the letter was; I was past prudence; I sprang on him and wrenched his hand away, catching him by the throat with my other hand. Diving into his pocket, I got the letter. Then I suddenly loosed hold of him, for his eyes were starting out of his head. I took out a couple of gold pieces and gave them to him.
“It’s urgent, you fool,” said I. “Hold your tongue about it.” And without waiting to study his amazed red face, I turned and ran towards the stable. In five minutes I was on a fresh horse, in six I was clear of the castle, heading back fast as I could go for the hunting-lodge. Even now Hermann remembers the grip I gave him—though doubtless he has long spent the pieces of gold.
When I reached the end of this second journey, I came in for the obsequies of Boris. James was just patting the ground under the tree with a mattock when I rode up; Sapt was standing by, smoking his pipe. The boots of both were stained and sticky with mud. I flung myself from my saddle and blurted out my news. The constable snatched at his letter with an oath; James leveled the ground with careful accuracy; I do not remember doing anything except wiping my forehead and feeling very hungry.
“Good Lord, she’s gone after him!” said Sapt, as he read. Then he handed me the letter.
I will not set out what the queen wrote. The purport seemed to us, who did not share her feelings, pathetic indeed and moving, but in the end (to speak plainly) folly. She had tried to endure her sojourn at Zenda, she said; but it drove her mad. She could not rest; she did not know how we fared, nor how those in Strelsau; for hours she had lain awake; then at last falling asleep, she had dreamt.
“I had had the same dream before. Now it came again. I saw him so plain. He seemed to me to be king, and to be called king. But he did not answer nor move. He seemed dead; and I could not rest.” So she wrote, ever excusing herself, ever repeating how something drew her to Strelsau, telling her that she must go if she would see “him whom you know,” alive again. “And I must see him—ah, I must see him! If the king has had the letter, I am ruined already. If he has not, tell him what you will or what you can contrive. I must go. It came a second time, and all so plain. I saw him; I tell you I saw him. Ah, I must see him again. I swear that I will only see him once. He’s in danger—I know he’s in danger; or what does the dream mean? Bernenstein will go with me, and I shall see him. Do, do forgive me: I can’t stay, the dream was so plain.” Thus she ended, seeming, poor lady, half frantic with the visions that her own troubled brain and desolate heart had conjured up to torment her. I did not know that she had before told Mr. Rassendyll himself of this strange dream; though I lay small store by such matters, believing that we ourselves make our dreams, fashioning out of the fears and hopes of to-day what seems to come by night in the guise of a mysterious revelation. Yet there are some things that a man cannot understand, and I do not profess to measure with my mind the ways of God.
However, not why the queen went, but that she had gone, concerned us. We had returned to the house now, and James, remembering that men must eat though kings die, was getting us some breakfast. In fact, I had great need of food, being utterly worn out; and they, after their labors, were hardly less weary. As we ate, we talked; and it was plain to us that I also must go to Strelsau. There, in the city, the drama must be played out. There was Rudolf, there Rischenheim, there in all likelihood Rupert of Hentzau, there now the queen. And of these Rupert alone, or perhaps Rischenheim also, knew that the king was dead, and how the issue of last night had shaped itself under the compelling hand of wayward fortune. The king lay in peace on his bed, his grave was dug; Sapt and James held the secret with solemn faith and ready lives. To Strelsau I must go to tell the queen that she was widowed, and to aim the stroke at young Rupert’s heart.
At nine in the morning I started from the lodge. I was bound to ride to Hofbau and there wait for a train which would carry me to the capital. From Hofbau I could send a message, but the message must announce only my own coming, not the news I carried. To Sapt, thanks to the cipher, I could send word at any time, and he bade me ask Mr. Rassendyll whether he should come to our aid, or stay where he was.
“A day must decide the whole thing,” he said. “We can’t conceal the king’s death long. For God’s sake, Fritz, make an end of that young villain, and get the letter.”
So, wasting no time in farewells, I set out. By ten o’clock I was at Hofbau, for I rode furiously. From there I sent to Bernenstein at the palace word of my coming. But there I was delayed. There was no train for an hour.
“I’ll ride,” I cried to myself, only to remember the next moment that, if I rode, I should come to my journey’s end much later. There was nothing for it but to wait, and it may be imagined in what mood I waited. Every minute seemed an hour, and I know not to this day how the hour wore itself away. I ate, I drank, I smoked, I walked, sat, and stood. The stationmaster knew me, and thought I had gone mad, till I told him that I carried most important despatches from the king, and that the delay imperiled great interests. Then he became sympathetic; but what could he do? No special train was to be had at a roadside station: I must wait; and wait, somehow, and without blowing my brains out, I did.
At last I was in the train; now indeed we moved, and I came nearer. An hour’s run brought me in sight of the city. Then, to my unutterable wrath, we were stopped, and waited motionless twenty minutes or half an hour. At last we started again; had we not, I should have jumped out and run, for to sit longer would have driven me mad. Now we entered the station. With a great effort I calmed myself. I lolled back in my seat; when we stopped I sat there till a porter opened the door. In lazy leisureliness I bade him get me a cab, and followed him across the station. He held the door for me, and, giving him his douceur, I set my foot on the step.
“Tell him to drive to the palace,” said I, “and be quick. I’m late already, thanks to this cursed train.”
“The old mare’ll soon take you there, sir,” said the driver. I jumped in. But at this moment I saw a man on the platform beckoning with his hand and hastening towards me. The cabman also saw him and waited. I dared not tell him to drive on, for I feared to betray any undue haste, and it would have looked strange not to spare a moment to my wife’s cousin, Anton von Strofzin. He came up, holding out his hand delicately gloved in pearl-gray kid, for young Anton was a leader of the Strelsau dandies.
“Ah, my dear Fritz!” said he. “I am glad I hold no appointment at court. How dreadfully active you all are! I thought you were settled at Zenda for a month?”
“The queen changed her mind suddenly,” said I, smiling. “Ladies do, as you know well, you who know all about them.”
My compliment, or insinuation, produced a pleased smile and a gallant twirling of his moustache.
“Well, I thought you’d be here soon,” he said, “but I didn’t know that the queen had come.”
“You didn’t? Then why did you look for me?”
He opened his eyes a little in languid, elegant surprise. “Oh, I supposed you’d be on duty, or something, and have to come. Aren’t you in attendance?”
“On the queen? No, not just now.”
“But on the king?”
“Why, yes,” said I, and I leaned forward. “At least I’m engaged now on the king’s business.”
“Precisely,” said he. “So I thought you’d come, as soon as I heard that the king was here.”
It may be that I ought to have preserved my composure. But I am not Sapt nor Rudolf Rassendyll.
“The king here?” I gasped, clutching him by the arm.
“Of course. You didn’t know? Yes, he’s in town.”
But I heeded him no more. For a moment I could not speak, then I cried to the cabman:
“To the palace. And drive like the devil!”
We shot away, leaving Anton open-mouthed in wonder. For me, I sank back on the cushions, fairly aghast. The king lay dead in the hunting-lodge, but the king was in his capital!
Of course, the truth soon flashed through my mind, but it brought no comfort. Rudolf Rassendyll was in Strelsau. He had been seen by somebody and taken for the king. But comfort? What comfort was there, now that the king was dead and could never come to the rescue of his counterfeit?
In fact, the truth was worse than I conceived. Had I known it all, I might well have yielded to despair. For not by the chance, uncertain sight of a passer-by, not by mere rumor which might have been sturdily denied, not by the evidence of one only or of two, was the king’s presence in the city known. That day, by the witness of a crowd of people, by his own claim and his own voice, ay, and by the assent of the queen herself, Mr. Rassendyll was taken to be the king in Strelsau, while neither he nor Queen Flavia knew that the king was dead. I must now relate the strange and perverse succession of events which forced them to employ a resource so dangerous and face a peril so immense. Yet, great and perilous as they knew the risk to be even when they dared it, in the light of what they did not know it was more fearful and more fatal still.
CHAPTER X. THE KING IN STRELSAU
MR. RASSENDYLL reached Strelsau from Zenda without accident about nine o’clock in the evening of the same day as that which witnessed the tragedy of the hunting-lodge. He could have arrived sooner, but prudence did not allow him to enter the populous suburbs of the town till the darkness guarded him from notice. The gates of the city were no longer shut at sunset, as they had used to be in the days when Duke Michael was governor, and Rudolf passed them without difficulty. Fortunately the night, fine where we were, was wet and stormy at Strelsau; thus there were few people in the streets, and he was able to gain the door of my house still unremarked. Here, of course, a danger presented itself. None of my servants were in the secret; only my wife, in whom the queen herself had confided, knew Rudolf, and she did not expect to see him, since she was ignorant of the recent course of events. Rudolf was quite alive to the peril, and regretted the absence of his faithful attendant, who could have cleared the way for him. The pouring rain gave him an excuse for twisting a scarf about his face and pulling his coat-collar up to his ears, while the gusts of wind made the cramming of his hat low down over his eyes no more than a natural precaution against its loss. Thus masked from curious eyes, he drew rein before my door, and, having dismounted, rang the bell. When the butler came a strange hoarse voice, half-stifled by folds of scarf, asked for the countess, alleging for pretext a message from myself. The man hesitated, as well he might, to leave the stranger alone with the door open and the contents of the hall at his mercy. Murmuring an apology in case his visitor should prove to be a gentleman, he shut the door and went in search of his mistress. His description of the untimely caller at once roused my wife’s quick wit; she had heard from me how Rudolf had ridden once from Strelsau to the hunting-lodge with muffled face; a very tall man with his face wrapped in a scarf and his hat over his eyes, who came with a private message, suggested to her at least a possibility of Mr. Rassendyll’s arrival. Helga will never admit that she is clever, yet I find she discovers from me what she wants to know, and I suspect hides successfully the small matters of which she in her wifely discretion deems I had best remain ignorant. Being able thus to manage me, she was equal to coping with the butler. She laid aside her embroidery most composedly.
“Ah, yes,” she said, “I know the gentleman. Surely you haven’t left him out in the rain?” She was anxious lest Rudolf’s features should have been exposed too long to the light of the hall-lamps.
The butler stammered an apology, explaining his fears for our goods and the impossibility of distinguishing social rank on a dark night. Helga cut him short with an impatient gesture, crying, “How stupid of you!” and herself ran quickly down and opened the door—a little way only, though. The first sight of Mr. Rassendyll confirmed her suspicions; in a moment, she said, she knew his eyes.
“It is you, then?” she cried. “And my foolish servant has left you in the rain! Pray come in. Oh, but your horse!” She turned to the penitent butler, who had followed her downstairs. “Take the baron’s horse round to the stables,” she said.
“I will send some one at once, my lady.”
“No, no, take it yourself—take it at once. I’ll look after the baron.”
Reluctantly and ruefully the fat fellow stepped out into the storm. Rudolf drew back and let him pass, then he entered quickly, to find himself alone with Helga in the hall. With a finger on her lips, she led him swiftly into a small sitting-room on the ground floor, which I used as a sort of office or place of business. It looked out on the street, and the rain could be heard driving against the broad panes of the window. Rudolf turned to her with a smile, and, bowing, kissed her hand.
“The baron what, my dear countess?” he inquired.
“He won’t ask,” said she with a shrug. “Do tell me what brings you here, and what has happened.”
He told her very briefly all he knew. She hid bravely her alarm at hearing that I might perhaps meet Rupert at the lodge, and at once listened to what Rudolf wanted of her.
“Can I get out of the house, and, if need be, back again unnoticed?” he asked.
“The door is locked at night, and only Fritz and the butler have keys.”
Mr. Rassendyll’s eye traveled to the window of the room.
“I haven’t grown so fat that I can’t get through there,” said he. “So we’d better not trouble the butler. He’d talk, you know.”
“I will sit here all night and keep everybody from the room.”
“I may come back pursued if I bungle my work and an alarm is raised.”
“Your work?” she asked, shrinking back a little.
“Yes,” said he. “Don’t ask what it is, Countess. It is in the queen’s service.”
“For the queen I will do anything and everything, as Fritz would.”
He took her hand and pressed it in a friendly, encouraging way.
“Then I may issue my orders?” he asked, smiling.
“They shall be obeyed.”
“Then a dry cloak, a little supper, and this room to myself, except for you.”
As he spoke the butler turned the handle of the door. My wife flew across the room, opened the door, and, while Rudolf turned his back, directed the man to bring some cold meat, or whatever could be ready with as little delay as possible.
“Now come with me,” she said to Rudolf, directly the servant was gone.
She took him to my dressing-room, where he got dry clothes; then she saw the supper laid, ordered a bedroom to be prepared, told the butler that she had business with the baron and that he need not sit up if she were later than eleven, dismissed him, and went to tell Rudolf that the coast was clear for his return to the sitting-room. He came, expressing admiration for her courage and address; I take leave to think that she deserved his compliments. He made a hasty supper; then they talked together, Rudolf smoking his cigar. Eleven came and went. It was not yet time. My wife opened the door and looked out. The hall was dark, the door locked and its key in the hands of the butler. She closed the door again and softly locked it. As the clock struck twelve Rudolf rose and turned the lamp very low. Then he unfastened the shutters noiselessly, raised the window and looked out.
“Shut them again when I’m gone,” he whispered. “If I come back, I’ll knock like this, and you’ll open for me.”
“For heaven’s sake, be careful,” she murmured, catching at his hand.
He nodded reassuringly, and crossing his leg over the windowsill, sat there for a moment listening. The storm was as fierce as ever, and the street was deserted. He let himself down on to the pavement, his face again wrapped up. She watched his tall figure stride quickly along till a turn of the road hid it. Then, having closed the window and the shutters again, she sat down to keep her watch, praying for him, for me, and for her dear mistress the queen. For she knew that perilous work was afoot that night, and did not know whom it might threaten or whom destroy.
From the moment that Mr. Rassendyll thus left my house at midnight on his search for Rupert of Hentzau, every hour and almost every moment brought its incident in the swiftly moving drama which decided the issues of our fortune. What we were doing has been told; by now Rupert himself was on his way back to the city, and the queen was meditating, in her restless vigil, on the resolve that in a few hours was to bring her also to Strelsau. Even in the dead of night both sides were active. For, plan cautiously and skillfully as he might, Rudolf fought with an antagonist who lost no chances, and who had found an apt and useful tool in that same Bauer, a rascal, and a cunning rascal, if ever one were bred in the world. From the beginning even to the end our error lay in taking too little count of this fellow, and dear was the price we paid.
Both to my wife and to Rudolf himself the street had seemed empty of every living being when she watched and he set out. Yet everything had been seen, from his first arrival to the moment when she closed the window after him. At either end of my house there runs out a projection, formed by the bay windows of the principal drawing-room and of the dining room respectively. These projecting walls form shadows, and in the shade of one of them—of which I do not know, nor is it of moment—a man watched all that passed; had he been anywhere else, Rudolf must have seen him. If we had not been too engrossed in playing our own hands, it would doubtless have struck us as probable that Rupert would direct Rischenheim and Bauer to keep an eye on my house during his absence; for it was there that any of us who found our way to the city would naturally resort in the first instance. As a fact, he had not omitted this precaution. The night was so dark that the spy, who had seen the king but once and never Mr. Rassendyll, did not recognize who the visitor was, but he rightly conceived that he should serve his employer by tracking the steps of the tall man who made so mysterious an arrival and so surreptitious a departure from the suspected house. Accordingly, as Rudolf turned the corner and Helga closed the window, a short, thickset figure started cautiously out of the projecting shadow, and followed in Rudolf’s wake through the storm. The pair, tracker and tracked, met nobody, save here and there a police constable keeping a most unwilling beat. Even such were few, and for the most part more intent on sheltering in the lee of a friendly wall and thereby keeping a dry stitch or two on them than on taking note of passers-by. On the pair went. Now Rudolf turned into the Konigstrasse. As he did so, Bauer, who must have been nearly a hundred yards behind (for he could not start till the shutters were closed) quickened his pace and reduced the interval between them to about seventy yards. This he might well have thought a safe distance on a night so wild, when the rush of wind and the pelt of the rain joined to hide the sound of footsteps.
But Bauer reasoned as a townsman, and Rudolf Rassendyll had the quick ear of a man bred in the country and trained to the woodland. All at once there was a jerk of his head; I know so well the motion which marked awakened attention in him. He did not pause nor break his stride: to do either would have been to betray his suspicions to his follower; but he crossed the road to the opposite side to that where No. 19 was situated, and slackened his pace a little, so that there was a longer interval between his own footfalls. The steps behind him grew slower, even as his did; their sound came no nearer: the follower would not overtake. Now, a man who loiters on such a night, just because another ahead of him is fool enough to loiter, has a reason for his action other than what can at first sight be detected. So thought Rudolf Rassendyll, and his brain was busied with finding it out.
Then an idea seized him, and, forgetting the precautions that had hitherto served so well, he came to a sudden stop on the pavement, engrossed in deep thought. Was the man who dogged his steps Rupert himself? It would be like Rupert to track him, like Rupert to conceive such an attack, like Rupert to be ready either for a fearless assault from the front or a shameless shot from behind, and indifferent utterly which chance offered, so it threw him one of them. Mr. Rassendyll asked no better than to meet his enemy thus in the open. They could fight a fair fight, and if he fell the lamp would be caught up and carried on by Sapt’s hand or mine; if he got the better of Rupert, the letter would be his; a moment would destroy it and give safety to the queen. I do not suppose that he spent time in thinking how he should escape arrest at the hands of the police whom the fracas would probably rouse; if he did, he may well have reckoned on declaring plainly who he was, of laughing at their surprise over a chance likeness to the king, and of trusting to us to smuggle him beyond the arm of the law. What mattered all that, so that there was a moment in which to destroy the letter? At any rate he turned full round and began to walk straight towards Bauer, his hand resting on the revolver in the pocket of his coat.
Bauer saw him coming, and must have known that he was suspected or detected. At once the cunning fellow slouched his head between his shoulders, and set out along the street at a quick shuffle, whistling as he went. Rudolf stood still now in the middle of the road, wondering who the man was: whether Rupert, purposely disguising his gait, or a confederate, or, after all, some person innocent of our secret and indifferent to our schemes. On came Bauer, softly, whistling and slushing his feet carelessly through the liquid mud. Now he was nearly opposite where Mr. Rassendyll stood. Rudolf was well-nigh convinced that the man had been on his track: he would make certainty surer. The bold game was always his choice and his delight; this trait he shared with Rupert of Hentzau, and hence arose, I think, the strange secret inclination he had for his unscrupulous opponent. Now he walked suddenly across to Bauer, and spoke to him in his natural voice, at the same time removing the scarf partly, but not altogether, from his face.
“You’re out late, my friend, for a night like this.”
Bauer, startled though he was by the unexpected challenge, had his wits about him. Whether he identified Rudolf at once, I do not know; I think that he must at least have suspected the truth.
“A lad that has no home to go to must needs be out both late and early, sir,” said he, arresting his shuffling steps, and looking up with that honest stolid air which had made a fool of me.
I had described him very minutely to Mr. Rassendyll; if Bauer knew or guessed who his challenger was, Mr. Rassendyll was as well equipped for the encounter.
“No home to go to!” cried Rudolf in a pitying tone. “How’s that? But anyhow, Heaven forbid that you or any man should walk the streets a night like this. Come, I’ll give you a bed. Come with me, and I’ll find you good shelter, my boy.”
Bauer shrank away. He did not see the meaning of this stroke, and his eye, traveling up the street, showed that his thoughts had turned towards flight. Rudolf gave no time for putting any such notion into effect. Maintaining his air of genial compassion, he passed his left arm through Bauer’s right, saying:
“I’m a Christian man, and a bed you shall have this night, my lad, as sure as I’m alive. Come along with me. The devil, it’s not weather for standing still!”
The carrying of arms in Strelsau was forbidden. Bauer had no wish to get into trouble with the police, and, moreover, he had intended nothing but a reconnaissance; he was therefore without any weapon, and he was a child in Rudolf’s grasp. He had no alternative but to obey the suasion of Mr. Rassendyll’s arm, and they two began to walk down the Konigstrasse. Bauer’s whistle had died away, not to return; but from time to time Rudolf hummed softly a cheerful tune, his fingers beating time on Bauer’s captive arm. Presently they crossed the road. Bauer’s lagging steps indicated that he took no pleasure in the change of side, but he could not resist.
“Ay, you shall go where I am going, my lad,” said Rudolf encouragingly; and he laughed a little as he looked down at the fellow’s face.
Along they went; soon they came to the small numbers at the station end of the Konigstrasse. Rudolf began to peer up at the shop fronts.
“It’s cursed dark,” said he. “Pray, lad, can you make out which is nineteen?”
The moment he had spoken the smile broadened on his face. The shot had gone home. Bauer was a clever scoundrel, but his nerves were not under perfect control, and his arm had quivered under Rudolf’s.
“Nineteen, sir?” he stammered.
“Ay, nineteen. That’s where we’re bound for, you and I. There I hope we shall find—what we want.”
Bauer seemed bewildered: no doubt he was at a loss how either to understand or to parry the bold attack.
“Ah, this looks like it,” said Rudolf, in a tone of great satisfaction, as they came to old Mother Holf’s little shop. “Isn’t that a one and a nine over the door, my lad? Ah, and Holf! Yes, that’s the name. Pray ring the bell. My hands are occupied.”
Rudolf’s hands were indeed occupied; one held Bauer’s arm, now no longer with a friendly pressure, but with a grip of iron; in the other the captive saw the revolver that had till now lain hidden.
“You see?” asked Rudolf pleasantly. “You must ring for me, mustn’t you? It would startle them if I roused them with a shot.” A motion of the barrel told Bauer the direction which the shot would take.
“There’s no bell,” said Bauer sullenly.
“Ah, then you knock?”
“I suppose so.”
“In any particular way, my friend?”
“I don’t know,” growled Bauer.
“Nor I. Can’t you guess?”
“No, I know nothing of it.”
“Well, we must try. You knock, and—Listen, my lad. You must guess right. You understand?”
“How can I guess?” asked Bauer, in an attempt at bluster.
“Indeed, I don’t know,” smiled Rudolf. “But I hate waiting, and if the door is not open in two minutes, I shall arouse the good folk with a shot. You see? You quite see, don’t you?” Again the barrel’s motion pointed and explained Mr. Rassendyll’s meaning.
Under this powerful persuasion Bauer yielded. He lifted his hand and knocked on the door with his knuckles, first loudly, then very softly, the gentler stroke being repeated five times in rapid succession. Clearly he was expected, for without any sound of approaching feet the chain was unfastened with a subdued rattle. Then came the noise of the bolt being cautiously worked back into its socket. As it shot home a chink of the door opened. At the same moment Rudolf’s hand slipped from Bauer’s arm. With a swift movement he caught the fellow by the nape of the neck and flung him violently forward into the roadway, where, losing his footing, he fell sprawling face downwards in the mud. Rudolf threw himself against the door: it yielded, he was inside, and in an instant he had shut the door and driven the bolt home again, leaving Bauer in the gutter outside. Then he turned, with his hand on the butt of his revolver. I know that he hoped to find Rupert of Hentzau’s face within a foot of his.
Neither Rupert nor Rischenheim, nor even the old woman fronted him: a tall, handsome, dark girl faced him, holding an oil-lamp in her hand. He did not know her, but I could have told him that she was old Mother Holf’s youngest child, Rosa, for I had often seen her as I rode through the town of Zenda with the king, before the old lady moved her dwelling to Strelsau. Indeed the girl had seemed to haunt the king’s foot-steps, and he had himself joked on her obvious efforts to attract his attention, and the languishing glances of her great black eyes. But it is the lot of prominent personages to inspire these strange passions, and the king had spent as little thought on her as on any of the romantic girls who found a naughty delight in half-fanciful devotion to him—devotion starting, in many cases, by an irony of which the king was happily unconscious, from the brave figure that he made at his coronation and his picturesque daring in the affair of Black Michael. The worshipers never came near enough to perceive the alteration in their idol.
The half then, at least, of Rosa’s attachment was justly due to the man who now stood opposite to her, looking at her with surprise by the murky light of the strong-smelling oil-lamp. The lamp shook and almost fell from her hand when she saw him; for the scarf had slid away, and his features were exposed to full view. Fright, delight, and excitement vied with one another in her eyes.
“The king!” she whispered in amazement. “No, but—” And she searched his face wonderingly.
“Is it the beard you miss?” asked Rudolf, fingering his chin. “Mayn’t kings shave when they please, as well as other men?” Her face still expressed bewilderment, and still a lingering doubt. He bent towards her, whispering:
“Perhaps I wasn’t over-anxious to be known at once.”
She flushed with pleasure at the confidence he seemed to put in her.
“I should know you anywhere,” she whispered, with a glance of the great black eyes. “Anywhere, your Majesty.”
“Then you’ll help me, perhaps?”
“With my life.”
“No, no, my dear young lady, merely with a little information. Whose home is this?”
“My mother’s.”
“Ah! She takes lodgers?”
The girl appeared vexed at his cautious approaches. “Tell me what you want to know,” she said simply.
“Then who’s here?”
“My lord the Count of Luzau-Rischenheim.”
“And what’s he doing?”
“He’s lying on the bed moaning and swearing, because his wounded arm gives him pain.”
“And is nobody else here?”
She looked round warily, and sank her voice to a whisper as she answered:
“No, not now—nobody else.”
“I was seeking a friend of mine,” said Rudolf. “I want to see him alone. It’s not easy for a king to see people alone.”
“You mean—?”
“Well, you know whom I mean.”
“Yes. No, he’s gone; but he’s gone to find you.”
“To find me! Plague take it! How do you know that, my pretty lady?”
“Bauer told me.”
“Ah, Bauer! And who’s Bauer?”
“The man who knocked. Why did you shut him out?”
“To be alone with you, to be sure. So Bauer tells you his master’s secrets?”
She acknowledged his raillery with a coquettish laugh. It was not amiss for the king to see that she had her admirers.
“Well, and where has this foolish count gone to meet me?” asked Rudolf lightly.
“You haven’t seen him?”
“No; I came straight from the Castle of Zenda.”
“But,” she cried, “he expected to find you at the hunting lodge. Ah, but now I recollect! The Count of Rischenheim was greatly vexed to find, on his return, that his cousin was gone.”
“Ah, he was gone! Now I see! Rischenheim brought a message from me to Count Rupert.”
“And they missed one another, your Majesty?”
“Exactly, my dear young lady. Very vexatious it is, upon my word!” In this remark, at least, Rudolf spoke no more and no other than he felt. “But when do you expect the Count of Hentzau?” he pursued.
“Early in the morning, your Majesty—at seven or eight.”
Rudolf came nearer to her, and took a couple of gold coins from his pocket.
“I don’t want money, your Majesty,” she murmured.
“Oh, make a hole in them and hang them round your neck.”
“Ah, yes: yes, give them to me,” she cried, holding out her hand eagerly.
“You’ll earn them?” he asked, playfully holding them out of her reach.
“How?”
“By being ready to open to me when I come at eleven and knock as Bauer knocked.”
“Yes, I’ll be there.”
“And by telling nobody that I’ve been here to-night. Will you promise me that?”
“Not my mother?”
“No.”
“Nor the Count of Luzau-Rischenheim?”
“Him least of all. You must tell nobody. My business is very private, and Rischenheim doesn’t know it.”
“I’ll do all you tell me. But—but Bauer knows.”
“True,” said Rudolf. “Bauer knows. Well, we’ll see about Bauer.”
As he spoke he turned towards the door. Suddenly the girl bent, snatched at his hand and kissed it.
“I would die for you,” she murmured.
“Poor child!” said he gently. I believe he was loath to make profit, even in the queen’s service, of her poor foolish love. He laid his hand on the door, but paused a moment to say:
“If Bauer comes, you have told me nothing. Mind, nothing! I threatened you, but you told me nothing.”
“He’ll tell them you have been here.”
“That can’t be helped; at least they won’t know when I shall arrive again. Good-night.”
Rudolf opened the door and slipped through, closing it hastily behind him. If Bauer got back to the house, his visit must be known; but if he could intercept Bauer, the girl’s silence was assured. He stood just outside, listening intently and searching the darkness with eager eyes.